London: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street.

V

INTRODUCTION.

THE publication of a Series of Original Novelets in this collection may perhaps require some brief explanation.

The general title by which these fictions are designated in some degree determines their character. They are "Old England Novelets." They are stories which have relation to the past life of our own land.

The eminent success of the author of ' Waverley,' in several of his romances in which the scene was laid in early times, such as 'Ivanhoe,' has called forth a host of imitators; and the term "Historical Novel" is now used to designate this class of productions. We think the term a misnomer, calculated to make many fancy that they are acquiring a knowledge of history, when they are yielding up their imaginations to the charm of a fictitious narrative. If a novel be properly historical, and in the literalness of its facts and characters make a close approach to real history, it must necessarily want some of the great essentials of

a work of imagination. There are many real events, no doubt, which have all the interest of romance; but the accessory circumstances are generally, at the same time, thought devoid of all fitness for the purposes of fiction. The novelist believes that he must change or suppress them, if he would discharge his vocation properly. Those, for the most part, who write what are called Historical Novels do this. The main events and characters appear to be accurate-perhaps are accurate; but the dependent persons and circumstances are wholly metamorphosed. The realities of history are thus distorted in the most truly important particulars, -the minuter facts which explain what is obscure and contradictory. These the Historical Novelist thinks himself at liberty to suppress, to modify, to transpose, exactly as the necessities of his story require. We have no objection to this in what is presented as a fiction and received as such. We object only to the attempt to persuade the reader for amusement that he may dispense with the labours of chroniclers and annalists, with statutes and ordinances, to obtain a clear and trustworthy view of the great movements of society in any past period.

With these impressions, we do not offer our "Old England Novelets" as Historical. We call them Novelets-or little novels-as much to mark their unpretending character as the brevity of their nar

ratives. We call them " Old England Novelets,' because they are intended to illustrate some leading causes of the social condition of our country in times essentially different from our own. In this point of view the novelist may be an instrument, and not an unimportant one, in advancing the study of History properly so called. The most voluminous and original History of England of our own day is called "A History of the People as well as a History of the Kingdom." The His

torical Novelist has been too apt to fancy that his province lay in making more attractive "The History of the Kingdom." The writers of the "Old England Novelets" will be content with the endeavour to bring out, illustrate, and render interesting the facts which make up "The History of the People." In this spirit, one author may attempt the working out of some plain occurrence of common life, so as to show the dependence even of the humblest upon the course of public events, and far more upon the upholding of just principles of social intercourse. Another may select the more inviting task of seizing upon the romantic incidents and feelings of past times—

7

"Dreams that the soul of youth engage

Ere fancy has been quelled;

Old Legends of the monkish page,
Traditions of the saint and sage,
Tales that have the rime of age,

And chronicles of eld.”—Longfellow

But in whatever path the authors walk, they will have one purpose-to advance the love of our country, and to assert the principles of benevolence and toleration, binding all ranks together in one feeling of common kindness and courtesy, which are more than ever essential to uphold and preserve "Old England."

It is not intended that the Tales in this Series shall follow in the order of time in which the scene of each is laid. This first Novelet, however, has the date of its story at as early a period as is consistent with any tolerably accurate picture of manners. The writer has assumed, to a certain extent, the character of one writing a legendary narrative, about a century after the Conquest. It is not necessary to attempt giving probability to this character, by the ordinary figment of having found an ancient MS. in Monkish Latin, &c. &c. The writer is content to leave himself in the hands of his reader, asking such reader only to picture him and his purpose according to the fashion in which "ancient Gower" embodied himself:

"Now for the writing of this werke,
I, who am a lonesome clerke,
Purposed for to write a book
After the world that whilom took
Its course in oldé days long past."

Prologue to the Confessio Amantis.